But there was one major problem: he was not genuinely converted to Jesus Christ.īecause it’s such an important principle and because so many people think that being sincere and trying hard is the way to be right with God, Paul repeats it again in verse 12. He was sincere he was dedicated he was zealous and energetic. As we saw in 3:4-6, Paul himself thought that he was doing everything he needed to do in order to be pleasing unto God. They’re trying to grow as Christians by living a good life and doing what Christians are supposed to do, but they’ve never truly become Christians in the first place. This may sound perfectly obvious, but in reality there are a lot of people trying to run in a race they’ve never entered. To grow as a Christian you’ve got to be in the race. To grow as a Christian you’ve got to be in the race, have the proper attitude, and give it the proper effort.
Jw public talk 3/16/19 how to#
In 3:12-16 Paul shows us how to reach this goal through the process of Christian growth:
![jw public talk 3/16/19 jw public talk 3/16/19](https://i2.wp.com/www.soulofmiami.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Artist-Promo-3.png)
Christianity is a developing personal relationship with the living Lord Jesus. Last week we saw the goal of the Christian life (3:10-11): To know Jesus Christ and to be like Him. In so doing, he gives us some basic principles for spiritual growth or, to use the athletic analogy, how to get into shape spiritually so that we can run to win the race set before us. In our text the apostle Paul uses that analogy to describe his own spiritual experience. Several times in the New Testament the Christian life is pictured as a race (1 Cor. They read magazines about running they set goals for themselves they train and push themselves toward those goals. Winners don’t just jog for exercise they’re into it all the way. (3) I don’t put into my running the kind of determined effort required to win. (2) I don’t have the attitude it takes to win.
![jw public talk 3/16/19 jw public talk 3/16/19](https://i1.wp.com/jwscheduler.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Member-Public-Talk-Assignments.png)
You don’t win races if you don’t enter them. There are at least three reasons I’ve never won: (1) I’ve only entered one race so far in my life. For many years I have jogged, but I’ve never won a race.